Boisterous ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith provided a valuable servic🔴e last week when he challenged fellow blacks to think about voting Republican on𒊎ce in a while.
But it would sure help if Republicans themselves made a better effort to understand core African-American values — particularly when it comes to the Voting Rights an꧅d the Civil Ri𓃲ghts acts.
Sp🌌eaking before a Vanderbilt University audience, Smith declared provocatively, “What I dream is that for one election, just one, every black person in America [would] vote Republican.”
He continued, “Black folks in America are telling one party, ‘W🌠e don’t give a damn about you.’ They’re telling the other party, ‘You’ve got our vote.’ Therefore, you have labeled yourself disenfranchised because one party knows they’ve got you under their thumb, the other party knows they’ll never get you and nobody comes to address your interest[s].”
Smith concluded, “We don’t [🔴shop around] with politics — and then we blame white America for our disenfranchisement.”
And so, despite decades of black family disintegration, a continuing test-score gap, unemployment rates double those of whites and other social woes, blacks continue to give ಞbig majorities of their vote to Democrats, especially when it comes to presidential candi🌱dates.
Blac💯ks’ historical allegiance to the “Party of Lincoln” was completely shattered in 1964, after GOP standard-bearer Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act (for, in his mind, legitimate, small-govern𒀰ment/libertarian reasons).
Since then, no Democratic Party presidential nominee has gotten 🧔less than🐓 83 percent of the black vote — and no GOPer more than 13 percent.
On the merits, that sho✤uldn’t be the case. Republican positions on issues like school choice, for example, s♔hould and often do appeal to black Americans.
But voters don’t align with a party me꧅rely by running down a checklist of public-policy issues. Rather, their loyalty often arises from a gut sense of whether the party’s fundamental values gel with the voter’s own.
And that’s where the GOP finds itself on the outs today. Blacks and Republ🌠icans have divergent view on one fundamental issue: voting.
Two weeks ago, thousand𓃲s journey𒅌ed to Selma, Ala., to celebrate a turning point in the civil rights movement.
In 1965, images of Alabama state troopers and deputies beating nonviolent marchers sparked national outra💖ge and spurred Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.
Here’s the irony: If not for Republicans, as GOPers rightfully note, the Voting Rights Act would never have become law, given the opposit𒐪ion of Southern Democrats, the party of Jim Crow.
Indeed, as Stephen A. Smith himself points out, then-Senate Republican leader Everettꦅ Dirksen was critical in helping break the Senate filibuster and gettꦅing the legislation passed.
Yet, fairly or not, Goldwater’s opposition to the ’60s civil rights legi♎slation resounds 50🎐 years later more than Dirksen’s support.
And today’s Republicans don’t seem to care. For example, Dirksen’s present-day GOP successor, Majority Leader Mitc💙h McConnell, skipped the Selma commemoration.
Republican House Speaker Joh💜n Boehner was also a no-show.
Their absences signal that today’s GOP prefers to ignore calls for the VRA to be updated, following a Supreme Court decision two years ago that declared parts of it unconstitutional because it predominantly covered a South that is very different today than it was five decades 🔴ago.
That just w🌠on’t fly in the black community. For many, the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act are living memory — concrete examples of a centuries-long march to social and political equality.
They are alarmed by what they see as a high-priority issue for Republicans: voter ID laws to curb෴ fraud at the ballot box.
And that’s understandable: With n💫ot-too-distant memories of poll taxes and questionnaires, any measure designed to make voting more difficult ꦏis sure to be viewed suspiciously.
GOPers need to recognize that keeping the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts intact — indeed, making voting easier, rather than harder — is as fundamental to the black community as, say, the Second Amendment is for many conserva🧔tives.
Though most bla🧸cks have ID (such as a driver’s license), being required to show it to exercise what they see as a fundamental right at the ballot box makes many of them as wary as gun-rights advocates are of laws req𒀰uiring a background check to exercise their fundamental right.
African-Americans would benefit if both parties weౠre forced to compete for their vote♏.
But when blacks and Republicans seem so far apart on the fundamental issue of voting accessibility, Smith’s idea of 🌠100 percent (or even 50 percent) of blacks voting GOP is as likely as the Knicks winning the NBA championship this year.